Sweet cookies.

June 3, Santa Rosa.

The bustle of the circus on week ends; the cookhouse opens at eight with coffee and pastries and a few people trickle in, then by nine o'clock the traffic increases under the cookhouse tent and by ten thirty everybody is up and getting ready for the long day of three shows, starting around noon as most of the performers double up as greeters and have to be at the doors by 12:30PM. The trailer is facing the tent, a front row view of the activity throughout the day, the little girl Svetla, Gino's daughter, back with her Dad with her mother now too, running to the door of the motor home next to us, her face painted, Andrea calling her to dinner but she runs off following Jose Ivan, Edith's baby a month and a half younger than Dylan, Gino and Lyubo warming up the motorcycles for what seems like an eternity before the globe of death act, the last one in the show, the noise drawing Dylan to the window to watch time and time again, finger duly pointing, the women in their successive costumes, clad in a robe against the cold, dashing to and from the tent; by the end of the day Richard, a circus fan who lives in the Bay Area and a once financial backer of Circus Chimera, guiding a group of people on a backstage tour of the circus, as he does every year, the group standing near the artists' entrance, "What you hear now inside the tent is the crew vacuuming the stage to get it ready for the next show," he is saying as I make my way past them to the car carrying Nicolas on my way to run errands, and by the end of the day Gino, and I know it's him because he likes to whistle loudly and shout "Hey chamaco!" whenever he sees the kids, is starting a barbecue now in front of the motor home next to us, and the smell of meat being grilled soon drifts over, as others stop by the cookhouse to unwind, watching the inevitable TV, and today munching on the home-made cookies Richard always brings over, a sweet end note.